The Perfect End To Germany

Tonight we finished Germany in the best way possible – completely drunk with a group of random strangers!  Could there be a better way to say goodbye to the country that drinks more beer than any others?  I think not

We started our day by getting lost while searching for the major sights/landmarks of Köln that were marked down on the rather difficult to read map the hostel had provided.  After doing a couple loops around a shopping center called Olivandenhof, we tried to stop for lunch at Globetrotter, a major outdoor specialty retailer in Europe (the store in Köln is their largest store, complete with a cold chamber, a rain simulator, a climbing tunnel, and a restaurant).  Their restaurant was severely short-staffed, however, and we got fed up after waiting an hour for food that never came so we left and went across the street to get brats from a vendor outside.

As we ate our brats, we followed the highlighted sightseeing route on our map to the Roman tower which used to be part of an old Roman wall around Köln.  We continued on to St Gereon church, a Romanesque church dating from the 11th and 13th centuries, and then finished off our sightseeing by stopping by the Saturn hi-fi store, which holds the world’s largest CD collection according to info on the map.  I didn’t find the store that impressive, but I was amused by the way they labeled different sections of music, especially when we found a section called “Black Music.”  Now that would never fly in North America!

Tired from walking, we stopped for a break at a coffee shop, which turned out to be a bad idea because I got the worst piece of chocolate cake I’ve ever had in my life!  It looked like it was filled with chocolate icing but it turned out to be a really disgusting chocolate pudding which was so bad Paul had to laugh.  I thought Germans were known for great desserts?!?!

Since we had a bit of time before going back to the hostel for Paul to work, we wandered back to town center and stumbled upon a large wine garden where there were about 20 booths selling different types of wine by the glass or the bottle and a couple of booths selling food.  I love German white wines and the horrendous chocolate cake left me feeling completely unsatisfied, so we decided to stop for glass of wine and a snack called schnippel, which is basically grated potato deep fried with bacon on top.  It was greasy but tasted good, the wine was really nice (although I have no idea what I ordered since everything was in German so I pointed at a random bottle), and we shared a table with a nice couple from southern Germany so overall I was glad we made this stop and it helped restore my mood before heading back to the hostel for a while.

Paul wrapped up work at about 10 pm and we headed out to get some dinner.  After a bit of contemplation (all the restaurants nearby looked the same), we decided to try a place called Gaffel Kolsch Brauereiausschank.  Sitting on the patio, we struck up conversation with some people about our age at the table next to us, and one thing led to another and we ended up inside the restaurant for beers with them when they stopped serving outside on the patio.  I don’t remember the last time I drank this much – our group conisisted of six guys and two girls (including Paul and me) and we went through 7 trays (consisting of 11 glasses each) of Kölsch!  One of the German guys with us ended up passing out at the table halfway through the night and we said our goodbyes and headed back to the hostel to do some drunken packing at 1 am!  This is one night of our trip I will definitely remember